The hypocrisy of Mr. Garner and Mr. Bodwin in Beloved by Toni Morrison In the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison, both Mr. Garner and Mr . Bodwin are initially presented as decent men, with views on the black race that differ from all the rest of the white men in the book. Readers' first impressions of each of these men are favorable. However, as he reads and reflects further, the reader notices more and more details that tend to change his initial impression. By the end of the book both men seem to have lost their allure. While very little is said against Mr. Garner, and even less against Mr. Bodwin, it seems that Morrison was trying to elicit very conflicting opinions about each of these characters. In the end, Mr. Garner seems no less racist than his fellow slave owners, and Mr. Bodwin, while opposed to slavery, appears to be much more racist than he lets on. Garner is the owner of Sweet Home, the plantation where Sethe, her family, and others were slaves before escaping. He is immediately spotted by the rest of the white men. When his character is first introduced, the narrator talks about him arguing with other farmers because his slaves are men. "Now at Sweet Home, my niggers are all men. I bought them that way, I raised them that way. All men" he had told other farmers (Morrison 10). With this comment Mr. Garner was seeking the reaction he loved to hear, "I wouldn't have any Negro men around my wife.", to which he would respond "neither would, nor would I" (11). On the surface Mr. Garner comes across as a truly admirable man. “He ran a special kind of slavery,” Baby Suggs had thought, “treating them like paid labor” (140). The way... middle of paper... is more than noble. Both men appear to take on a more powerful air when they are in public and try to appear as non-racist as possible. Yet Mr. Garner owns slaves, an obviously racist act, even though he allows them more than other slave owners would. And Mr. Bodwin, who says he is against slavery and fought to end it, displays a figure in his home who embodies slavery. It seems that the only difference between the other slave owners and Mr. Garner is that they don't try to hide their racism or pretend that they are better than anyone else. Mr. Bodwin does not own slaves and does not believe in this practice, but he is still racist, as we can see from the figure in his house. Which of these is better? Who can say? But most people don't like hypocrites. Works Cited Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Markham, Ontario: Penguin Books Canada Limited, 1987